How do you handle your email?

[Scottish Business Owner]

An interesting story from Webuser regarding a new tool in Gmail which allows you to "Take a Break" for 15 minutes from your inbox. It's obviously had a mixed reception but it brings up an interesting question about how people deal with their email inbox.

Gmail feature draws criticism - Web User News

Do you answer emails as they come in or do you set aside certain times each day to respond to emails? Maybe some people prioritise some mail over others and do a bit of both above.

 

[PC]

Surely nobody uses gmail for business? *confused*

 

[Neil]

I use Gmail for all my accounts, business and personal. It has great search tools, labels and the like which means you can file one email in more than one "folder" depending on the topics.

There are also great tools like GTD inbox that turns it in to a great productivity centre. GTDInbox - GTD, Task Management and a Better Inbox for Gmail

Gmail has really moved on.

Aye

Neil

 

[TomB]

I was a beta tester for gmail, and it was really good back then.

I have to say I'm one of these people that has my emails open all day and replies as they come in otherwise I'll totally forget to reply to them.

It probably counter-productive though. I know a lot of people that only check their emails everynow and then and keep their outlook closed. Which I can understand but then you spend twice as long working on them as you have more to take care of.

I suppose everybody has their own system that works for them.

T

 

[Idea15]

Tons of colour-coded tags in my T'bird works for me. I have rules set so emails which come in from clients are automatically colour coded to the project.

My god, I need professional help!

 

[Power Lunch Club]

Tons of colour-coded tags in my T'bird

What's 'T,bird'?

Gordon
PLC

 

[Idea15]

Thunderbird.

Thunderbird - Reclaim your inbox

 

[Power Lunch Club]

I am never sure if any of these are compatible with some of the MS Products...I do a lot of email merging....and of course Outlook chat happily away with that....

But things like Gmail or even this Thunderbird....mmmm...don't know...

Do they work with MS Word for things like email merging?

Gordon
PLC

 

[Wills]

I use outlook with filters/rules to separate the incoming emails, as it's on a server it's live and if I'm in the studio or at my desk I can see what's new and imporatnt, enquires I deal with as they arrive the rest wait till I have a spare slot.

With heavy filtering on the mail server I have managed to eliminate most of the spam.

 

[polr]

Surely nobody uses gmail for business? *confused*

I use Gmail and Thunderbird together for my company emails as I refuse to fork out for exchange.

PCSUPPORT, I was just wondering if this was just personal preference or if you have any particular reason for not liking it? (just incase there's something I'm unaware of that could be harming my company using it!)

In ref to how I answer emails, I almost always do it straight away. I've tried to set aside time to do it several times now but I always give into temptation. Would increas my productivity a huge amount if I could just stop checking them though

 

[fantasycouriers]

How do i handle my email?
With the delete button!!